The Japanese Communist Party’s New Kawaii Mascots (2013)
japantrends.com
japantrends.com
Consumption tax is not fair as it is hardest on the poor, and does very little to redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom of society.
Common misconception is that communism is the antithesis of capitalism; Marx wrote instead about overclocking capitalism so hard that a better society could be built out of its extreme conclusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism
Marx seems to have started out with the basis of a "energy theory of value" but then talked himself into the idea that only labor was the source of excess value (more value out than needed for continued operation). Thus we ended up with the whole "labor theory of value".
Never mind that he seemed more interested in a cooperative system of industry (workers owning the factories the work in) than the state run system that the soviet union produced.
He considered the idea of Russia going right to socialism to be crazy, as it was still mostly agrarian.
He was looking at heavily industrialized nations like England and Germany to transition instead, having used capitalism to get the required infrastructure and legal framework into place.
If it was actually communism, he would have never had that kind of power.
However the folk who rose to the top realised that if they wanted to stay on top, they had to keep the struggle bit going indefinitely.
It's about as stupid as saying that every person killed in other wars was killed by capitalism.
Communism was merely a convenient way to distract the masses while the fat cats were making off with the loot.
edit - even Stalin had something of the lovable rogue about him, back when he was a 2-bit gangster and before he commanded the deaths of millions.
Someone could easily do a kawaii cartoon version of the adventures of young Stalin. - http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSstalin1.jpg
http://i1.cpcache.com/product/199796497/follow_chairman_meow...